Group Genie

I just uploaded a Craigslist ad about the “goodness” section of the website.  I made a 4-minute video that you can watch here:  There’s also a nice poster that I put in the ad that I think sums things up nicely:

Perhaps 30 years ago I read a time management book by Alan Lakein. It was called How to Get Control of Your Time and Life. In the book he proposed a very key question to help people focus. He said … Continue reading →

According to the Group Genie legend a security guard bought three brass lamps from a thrift shop. He took them home, put oil in them and lit them. Three genies appeared, each offering him a wish. He could have eternal youth, vast riches, and a harem of luscious women if he wished.

Instead of being desirous for himself, the guard asked the genies what would help humanity and all living creatures the most. The genies decided that it would be to form a creativity team and action network. The genies explained that all through history humanity had experienced revolutionary changes brought on by huge new ideas or discoveries. Agriculture, written language, the use of money, and the Scientific Method were among the two dozen most pivotal ideas of history. So the genies would innovate NEW upgrades for humanity. But the genies demanded that the guard find humans to help them, because they knew that humans would spurn and put down any idea that they didn’t personally participate in. The guard also had to build a website that would be called GroupGenie.Org. Group Genie would be an “incubator accelerator” for revolutionary, game-changing ideas.

Then quicker than you can say ‘Shazam times seven’ the genies came up with the first seven world-changing ideas. You can find them in the World Changing section of this website. The guard read the ideas and for the first time in a long time he felt optimistic about the future of the world. But then the genies told him something that troubled him. First, they asked if he had ever read fairy tales with dragons and treasures in them. Like most people, he had. Then they told him that the fairy tales were symbolic. The world has many treasures but people can’t access them until they kill the dragons in themselves. In the same way, the Group Genie website already had trillions of dollars worth of potential treasures, but the dragons in most people would cause them to be blind to the treasures.

“What dragons do you mean?” asked the guard.

“There are many,” replied the genies. “For instance, many people have a gut-level doubt that the world can change — even despite the many radical changes that have happened over history. So they will reject you when you say these upgrades can change the world. Another set of dragons are expectations. For instance, a person who sees the world politically will reject or downplay a solution if it’s not political. They will say it’s “okay,” but it doesn’t get to the root problems which are political. A religiously-minded person will do something similar if the solution is not religious. Other dragons are people’s conditioning. For instance, many people are conditioned to not take seriously anything small that doesn’t make a big splash. If a big corporation or a lot of money or a lot of fancy PR isn’t behind it, they will consider it not to be serious. — But the solutions we have invented are ongoing solutions. They are ongoing the way a river is ongoing. So we genies say, ‘Don’t make a splash; make a river!’”

The guard became troubled and asked, “If people will reject the solutions, then what can be done?”

“Two things. First, you must kill the dragons by calling people’s attention to them. Second, a small number of people will say yes, and will help. They will have success with the upgrades, once some rough edges are worked out. Then you must affirm and broadcast the success. Call your updates, the Action Signal, because actions speak louder than words.”

“I thought of something else that will help” said the guard. “If I tell people that magic genies are behind this, they will respect the ideas.” The genies looked at each other and telepathically said to each other, ‘This guard’s heart is in the right place, but he’s no deep thinker.’ Then they replied, “No! First, if you tell people that magic genies are behind this, they will either think you are nuts, or they will steal the lamps and we will have to go back to granting stupid wishes. But Group Genie is way cooler than that! No, you must tell people that you came up with these ideas. After all, you have all that spare time as a security guard, right?”

The guard replied, “To tell the truth, people have never thought I was very sharp. In fact, I often say dumb things.” “Well, here’s the solution,” replied one of the genies. “Just say and write the dumbest things you can think of, and tell people that because of the Law of Averages, you inevitably must come up with brilliant ideas! It must average out. Everybody knows that!”

The guard’s eyes opened wide and he laughed happily. “Golly gee, I never thought of that!”

“Yes,” said one of the genies. “That’s part of Genie Science, which doesn’t work like human science.”

[Full disclosure: I made up this story. The three genies aren't real!]